I know March is the month of well…so many things (Remember Ides of March!!). It is also a month that celebrates Women and their empowerment. Yup! I am talking about March 8th – International Women’s Day. Now I am not a bluestocking feminist, though I have read all my Simone de Beauvoir and Gloria Steinem; but I am somebody who is inherently conscious of the fact that all the privileges that I enjoy and things that I take for granted are there for me because, many years ago, many women and a significant number of men stood up and said – hold it! That’s wrong and we need to change it! There were innumerable sacrifices along the way and many suffered so that I and all of us could breathe freely. While the glass ceiling continues to exist and each day a woman has to fight to protect herself – physically, emotionally and mentally; there is no getting away from the fact that we are in much better place than our grandmothers or even mothers! Whether it is education abroad or a tour of duty to a violent war-torn location or even a night out with the girls, we are able to do this and much more because, in our past there were women who stood and fought so that their daughters could have better lives.

Therefore for the month of March, I propose something unique; I would urge all my readers to share with other and me, stories from their families, of men and women who rebelled and went against the then social norms so that our lives would be vastly improved. It could be your grandmother or your teacher or your neighbor or just somebody you had heard off. The unsung heroes who did their share and more, but were never recorded in the history books; yet as their inheritors we know, the battles they must have fought and won!

I would request all my readers to go back and search their family troves for tales which would show us how small actions lead to big results. This is part of our history, our identity and we owe it to all our ancestral warriors to not only keep their memory but also share it to make the world a better place.

Please send your stories to cirtncee01@yahoo.com, along with a brief on yourself and I will publish the same on my blog with your credits the very next day. This is an event that I plan to host through this month, so send me your entries! The idea is to share and make people and ourselves aware of the change that so many had people sought around the world!

Do not worry too much over the length (either long or short) of the entry; the story and not the paragraph is important.

I will kick-start this event by sharing a tale from my own family trove, which I will post in my next post.

Until then, I leave you with anthem from my mother and aunt’s graduate school days, which they said inspired them and which they played for me when I barely of an age to understood what it meant!!! But now, I have to agree with them is the best anthem ever for all women, all over the world!